Fion wrote on Mar 9, 2011, 10:37:Pwn used to be pronounced pween because it originated as an april fools joke in PC Gamer magazine in the mid 90's. When the april edition of the mag (mind this was when it was a hugely popular product) came out and every article and review was using the word everyone was like 'wtf' until they finally said it was an april fools joke, they wanted to invent a new word for kicking ass, the mag even included how to pronounce the word. But as you can see the use of pwn quickly spread.

Today the new kids say pown because they all think it is a derivative of own. The simple fact that it is pronounced like this in major media when it is rarely said doesn't help.

Fion wrote on Mar 9, 2011, 10:37:On topic with Gib, everyone I have ever played quake with has said it with a hard g, so that is how I pronounce it. I'd be willing to bet that while Carmack says it is a j sound, others within iD say it differently. So I chalk it up to dialect differences.

I'm guessing that everyone there pronounces it the way Carmack does. On a similar topic, it's id, not iD (nor ID Id, or i.d.).

As for pwn, I think it indeed should be pronounced the same as own, as it is meant as a goof on the common typo. I and friends sometimes pronounce it powned, but this is meant as a verbal way of expressing the same joke.

Fion wrote on Mar 9, 2011, 10:37:On topic with Gib, everyone I have ever played quake with has said it with a hard g, so that is how I pronounce it. I'd be willing to bet that while Carmack says it is a j sound, others within iD say it differently. So I chalk it up to dialect differences.

I'm guessing that everyone there pronounces it the way Carmack does. On a similar topic, it's id, not iD (nor ID Id, or i.d.).

As for pwn, I think it indeed should be pronounced the same as own, as it is meant as a goof on the common typo. I and friends sometimes pronounce it powned, but this is meant as a verbal way of expressing the same joke.

Pwn used to be pronounced pween because it originated as an april fools joke in PC Gamer magazine in the mid 90's. When the april edition of the mag (mind this was when it was a hugely popular product) came out and every article and review was using the word everyone was like 'wtf' until they finally said it was an april fools joke, they wanted to invent a new word for kicking ass, the mag even included how to pronounce the word. But as you can see the use of pwn quickly spread.

Today the new kids say pown because they all think it is a derivative of own. The simple fact that it is pronounced like this in major media when it is rarely said doesn't help.

It's similar to how the folks use leet speech and think it is cool because it makes the words look all funny and cool. When it was originated so that BBS users could still search for porn after that word was banned lol. Thus the first leet speech word was pr0n.

On topic with Gib, everyone I have ever played quake with has said it with a hard g, so that is how I pronounce it. I'd be willing to bet that while Carmack says it is a j sound, others within iD say it differently. So I chalk it up to dialect differences.

Ive never heard pwn being pronounced as pween. It sounds rediculous and makes no sense whatsoever.

Yeah, that was originally sort of the point: to make a joke of it...

I'm pretty sure it was right here on Blues News ages ago where someone (loonyboi, maybe?) invented the "pween" pronunciation, and I've always used it since, just because it's amusing and silly... But, I'll be damned if I can find any trace of such a post using either the search functionality here or Google with "site:www.bluesnews.com"... So, maybe I hallucinated the whole thing? ;-) Any other old-timers who have been here since nearly the beginning remember such a thing, or have I just become senile?

InBlack wrote on Mar 9, 2011, 09:07:Actually I would say that the pronounciation comes from the word "own". As in: I owned your ass -> I pwned your ass.

thats my understanding of leetspeak. they like to replace certain letters with numbers that have a similar shape. even if it looks inverted. leet becomes l33t. likewise some letters are also replaced by characters close to it on the keyboard or in the sequence of the alphabet order. so instead of 'own' it became 'pwn'.

Agrajag wrote on Mar 9, 2011, 06:25:This reminds me of "pwn", which I recall used to be pronounced "pween" back in the day, but now everyone pronounces as "pown" or "pawn" instead for some bizarre reason...

Probably because "pween" is pretty close to "peen." No one wants to add a "no homo!" suffix every time they say they pwn'd someone.

Actually I would say that the pronounciation comes from the word "own". As in: I owned your ass -> I pwned your ass.

Ive never heard pwn being pronounced as pween. It sounds rediculous and makes no sense whatsoever. My 2c.

Prez wrote on Mar 9, 2011, 08:08:If the city of Boston can get away calling their basketball team the "[S]eltics", when the correct pronunciation is "[K]eltics", then by God I am going to continue to say "[G] ib", because "[J] ib" sounds retarded.

Glasgow Celtic is pronounced Seltic as well. Just seems to be the standard for sports teams to use the S instead of the hard C.

If the city of Boston can get away calling their basketball team the "[S]eltics", when the correct pronunciation is "[K]eltics", then by God I am going to continue to say "[G] ib", because "[J] ib" sounds retarded.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

I was actually thinking about something like this the other day, words where the short form is part of the full word, but the short form is pronounced differently than it would be as a part of the whole word. It probably has a lot to do with the internet, or at least text-heavy communication, as the only two examples that ever readily come to me are from WoW, where they use "disc" for "discipline" and "demo" for "demonology"